What are the traits of a 'brat' in BDSM?

The bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism (BDSM) community today uses online personal ads as a major way for members to meet. Such communities have designed their on-line experience around the format of the once prevalent newspaper/magazine personals ads and often feature physical descriptions, personal pictures, and special interests listings. This study examines personal profiles posted on an on-line BDSM community, which allows for the examination of the type and content of these ads that may be the impetus for them to be “successful.” As such, this approach goes beyond traditionally studied aspects of personal ads from other mainstream groups (Paul et al. 2010; Rajecki et al. 1991; Strassberg and Holty 2003). This is achieved through an experimental approach of creating profiles to see which attract the most viewers; such an approach is fairly unique, although not completely new (Goode 1996a; Sitton and Blanchard 1995; Strassberg and Holty 2003). Content-analysis is also performed on the viewers of the experimental profiles in order to gauge common characteristics/content that users have on their profiles for the purported purpose of making themselves attractive for more views.

In 2001, a case could be made that though the development of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT) and the leather/BDSM communities (BDSM being an acronym standing for bondage and discipline, domination and submission, and sadism and masochism) had been somewhat parallel, the pansexual leather/BDSM community had in many ways become the cutting edge in its acceptance of bisexuals. Ten years later, this article looks at recent developments (especially but not exclusively among younger people) concerning gender, sexual orientation and interest in kink as a form of alternative sexual expression. The author predicts a soon-to-arrive post-GLBT world in which the terms gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender will have faded into irrelevance and in which there will be increased openness to and acceptance of BDSM/fetish/kink activities.

The Biology of BDSM: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT Powerplay, or the consensual power exchange between “Dominant” and “submissive” (D/s) role partners, is common practice within BDSM culture. To many BDSM practitioners, their D/s role is an integral part of their sexual identity, informing not only their sexual scripts but also their non-sexual social interactions. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) text analysis software was used to process 261 participants’ responses to prompts asking them to write erotic and relationship-themed narratives. Using a data-driven approach to model selection, we regressed participants’ engagement in BDSM and D/s powerplay role identification on standardized language frequencies. Stories from more active BDSM practitioners’ narratives used more perceptual words, suggesting potentially mindful, intimate, and detailed storytelling, whereas non-practitioners used more tentativeness and death in their writings. Moreover, language reflected D/s role attributes, with Dominants exhibiting ownership, responsibility, and other-focus, and submissives referencing power dynamics and self-focus in their responses. Findings are consistent with existing literature on BDSM power relationships and relate to psychosexual well-being.

This article introduces the special issue “Reimagining ‘Kink’: Transformation, growth, and healing in BDSM.” The article provides a description of the atypical sexual/erotic or leisure practices and interests that are labeled kink or covered by the acronym BDSM. The article presents a general overview of the prevalence of kinky fantasies, interests, behaviors, and identities built on these activities. A discussion of the importance of consent is also reviewed as a core feature of this type of sexual or leisure activity, which is assumed or discussed by all the articles in the special issue. An overview of the individual papers in the special issue is presented to highlight the ways in which kink sexuality can be an opportunity for peoples’ personal growth, self-actualization, healing, and transformation.

Psychotherapists’ negative misconceptions about people involved or interested in BDSM/kink can result in unethical clinical practices and ineffective or harmful therapeutic outcomes. Five of psychotherapists’ common misconceptions about BDSM/kink are: that BDSM/kink relationships constitute a fringe relational style or “alternative lifestyle,” that BDSM/kink is inherently abusive and causes trauma, that involvement in BDSM/kink is caused by past trauma, that BDSM/kink relationships are inferior to or less meaningful than non-BDSM/kink relationships, and that BDSM/kink is not clinically relevant or appropriate to discuss in trauma therapy. This article challenges these five common misconceptions, discusses relevant research findings, and explains five of the essential clinical skills for trauma psychotherapists working with people interested or involved in BDSM/kink relationships and practices: understanding and identifying BDSM/kink relational roles and headspaces, distinguishing BDSM/kink from abuse, understanding and identifying key components of non-abusive BDSM/kink, determining the clinical salience of BDSM/kink, and identifying and managing freefall.

Many bondage-discipline, domination-submission, sadomasochism (BDSM) practitioners identify as primarily dominant or primarily submissive. In the current study, BDSM practitioners with self-identified preferences for dominance or for submission described the traits that they feel make them well suited for their preferred BDSM role, their perceptions of benefits and challenges of BDSM generally, and the benefits and challenges of their preferred role. Semi-structured interviews were completed with 9 dominants and 12 submissives and explored using thematic analysis. Participants described dominants as empathic and nurturing, desiring and able to take control, and attentive and responsible, while submissives were characterized as willing to give up control and having a desire to please. Interviewees described ways in which their BDSM role fit with their overall personality, as well as incongruities between their role in BDSM play and their day-to-day personas. The general benefits of BDSM mentioned by the participants for both roles were pleasure from pleasuring others, physical pleasure and arousal, fun, variety, and going beyond vanilla, personal growth, improved romantic relationships, community, psychological release, freedom from day-to-day roles, and being yourself. Participants also discussed the dominant-specific benefits of control or power, rewards, and confidence, and the submissive-specific benefit of giving up control. In addition to the shared challenges and risks of stigma, relationship problems, and accepting desires reported, dominant-specific issues of more work and responsibility and possessive submissives, and submissive-specific issues of vulnerability, bad dominants, and following orders and accepting decisions were addressed by participants. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Pediatric tumors of the central nervous system are the most common cause of cancer-related death in children. The five-year survival rate for high-grade gliomas in children is less than 20\%. Due to their rarity, the diagnosis of these entities is often delayed, their treatment is mainly based on historic treatment concepts, and clinical trials require multi-institutional collaborations. The MICCAI Brain Tumor Segmentation (BraTS) Challenge is a landmark community benchmark event with a successful history of 12 years of resource creation for the segmentation and analysis of adult glioma. Here we present the CBTN-CONNECT-DIPGR-ASNR-MICCAI BraTS-PEDs 2023 challenge, which represents the first BraTS challenge focused on pediatric brain tumors with data acquired across multiple international consortia dedicated to pediatric neuro-oncology and clinical trials. The BraTS-PEDs 2023 challenge focuses on benchmarking the development of volumentric segmentation algorithms for pediatric brain glioma through standardized quantitative performance evaluation metrics utilized across the BraTS 2023 cluster of challenges. Models gaining knowledge from the BraTS-PEDs multi-parametric structural MRI (mpMRI) training data will be evaluated on separate validation and unseen test mpMRI dataof high-grade pediatric glioma. The CBTN-CONNECT-DIPGR-ASNR-MICCAI BraTS-PEDs 2023 challenge brings together clinicians and AI/imaging scientists to lead to faster development of automated segmentation techniques that could benefit clinical trials, and ultimately the care of children with brain tumors.

All over the world, BDSM practitioners meet together in public, often in restaurants and bars. The socialization that happens at these events is a critical part of the BDSM lifestyle/community. However, no previous research has collected large quantities of data to learn about the event. In this article, we look into BDSM practitioners and their experiences and attitudes towards the munch and variations on the munch. What we find in this international survey on munches, and other similar nonplay BDSM events, is that it seems to be the central social institution of the BDSM lifestyle. Respondents report going to munches frequently and rate them highly as part of their lifestyle. The data also suggest that these events tend to be much less sexually charged and alcohol driven than many outsiders would expect them to be. In general, we see that these events seem to not only be a critical institution for those in the BDSM lifestyle but also works as an important conduit to newcomers, enabling them to integrate quickly and well into the BDSM lifestyle in a safe public environment.

Between Pleasure and Pain: A Pilot Study on the Biological Mechanisms Associated With BDSM Interactions in Dominants and Submissives